Friday, November 13, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 106 | Friday, November 13, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

A year after election, three in four approve of Obama University Mail Room at J. Walter Wilson during the day and in the Sciences Library at night.

Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11, presiMore than three in four students — 77.2 percent — approve of the way dent of Brown Democrats and President Obama is handling his Herald Opinions columnist, said job, with 19.8 percent strongly ap- he thinks the poll numbers reflect proving and 57.4 percent somewhat the fact that “the president’s agenapproving, according to a recent da for health care reform and to Herald poll. increase loans for higher educaThe percentage of students tion is vastly popular in the Brown who said they approved of Obama community.” is below the percentage of students Obama’s job approval rating — 86.1 percent among Brown — who reported students is THE HERALD POLL significantly just before last year’s election in last fall’s Herald higher than his rating nationally, poll that they would vote for him. which is just above 50 percent in Among the remaining students, recent Gallup polls.

11.8 percent said they somewhat Health care and climate change disapproved, 4.5 percent said they legislation particularly affect colstrongly disapproved and 6.6 per- lege-age students, Feigenbaum cent said they did not know or had said. Obama’s pursuit of such legno answer. islation, as well as Brown students’ The Herald poll was conducted support of a “progressive agenda,” from Nov. 2 through Nov. 4 — one makes him especially popular on year to the day after Obama’s elec- campus, Feigenbaum said. tion — and has a 3.6 percent margin Feigenbaum said the Brown of error with 95 percent confidence. Democrats have been revitalized A total of 687 Brown undergradu- by Obama’s presidency, with inates completed the poll, which The creased attendance at meetings Herald administered as a written continued on page 3 questionnaire to students in the

On Senior Day, frosh may shine

By Sarah Julian Staff Writer

By Dan Alexander Senior Staff Writer

Before the football team plays Dartmouth on Saturday, the spotlight will be on the 22 senior players being honored on Senior Day. But once the ceremony ends and the game starts, two first years might steal the show.

SPORTS

Min Wu / Herald File Photo

Alex Feldman ’10 (left) and Daniel Oviedo ’10 celebrated last fall after President Obama’s election. A year later, Obama continues to enjoy significant support on campus.

In fifth year, Strait Talk builds bridges once again

By Max Godnick Staff Writer

inside

Fifteen student delegates from Taiwan, China and the United States have been on campus since last week to discuss and mediate disputes among the three countries at the fifth annual Strait Talk symposium. Originally founded by Johnny Lin ’08, this year’s Strait Talk ended Thursday after a week of workshops, discussions and presentations.

The symposium’s goal is to “have young people come together from places where they haven’t had a lot of exposure to each other as people,” said the program’s director, Henry Shepherd ’08.

Prospective participants from the three countries apply to be delegates and five students from each nation are selected to join the symposium.

“By bringing them together and putting them in the same space, they will come to see the situation in a new way and a new level of understanding will be reached,” Shepherd said.

While Brown students have made up the bulk of the delegation in previous symposia, only one Brown student, Alina Kung ’12, is among this year’s delegation, Shepherd said. The other American delegates hail from

News....1-3 Sports.......4 Arts...........5 Editorial....6 Opinion.....7 Today........8

www.browndailyherald.com

Brown cornerback A.J. Cruz ’13 and Dartmouth freshman quarterback Greg Patton are the reigning Ivy League Defensive and Ivy League Offensive Players of the Week.

Cruz had a team-high nine tackles, three pass break-ups and one interception for Brown last week. Patton, meanwhile, got his first chance in a varsity game for Dartmouth because of injuries at quarterback. The freshman stepped into the Big Green’s wildcat formation and had 29 carries for a schoolrecord 243 rushing yards and two touchdowns. continued on page 4

Behind the scenes, putting the ‘plan’ in meal plan a food goes through, the more nutrients it is stripped of and the more additives and preserMost students know the Sharpe vatives they contain,” she said.

Refector y like the backs of their “We know exactly what is going hands. into the food.”

Executive Chef John O’Shea, Without a second thought, they know where to go for veg- who has been working at Dinetarian-friendly fare or for three ing Ser vices for 33 years, said different types of peanut butter Brown’s ability to produce so much food from — but few know about the little decisions that FEATURE scratch — including go into creating each the pizza made for the meal at the Ratty and the Verney- Ratty’s “Tastes of the World” line Woolley Dining Hall.

— is unusual for college dining Since Administrative Dietitian ser vices. For example, Dining Gina Guiducci started working Ser vices has machines used for for Dining Ser vices a year ago, producing its own meat products, she has planned the menus for such as the patties used for burgthe Ratty, the V-Dub and lunch ers. Brown’s kitchen also has its at the Ivy Room. Guiducci takes own in-house bakeshop, O’Shea several factors into consider- said. ation — including dishes’ nutriGuiducci said she strives to tional value, their popularity, the create menus for both dining kitchens’ production capabilities, halls that have a balance of proholidays and the Dining Services tein, carbohydrates and fat. budget.

But while her priority is creatBehind the scenes in Brown’s ing healthy menus, Guiducci said dining halls, most of the meals she also seeks to provide students are prepared on site and from continued on page 2 scratch. “The more processing

By Miriam Furst Contributing Writer

Zung Nguyen Vu / Herald

Student delegates converged on campus for the fifth annual Strait Talk.

Harvard, Wellesley College, the Ohio State University and Johns Hopkins University.

Part of this cultural understanding stems from the fact that delegates from each nation are housed together for the duration of the symposium, said Han Cui ’10, the program’s finance coordinator and a Herald assistant sports editor. “This is part of the whole concept of trust building. It allows them to learn about the other side on a personal level.”

The program is coordinated by a steering committee of about 15 to 20 students, Shepherd said.

Upon arriving at Brown, the delegates participate in a combination of closed-door “interactive conflict resolutions” and public events open to the entire Brown community.

Tatsushi Arai, assistant professor of conflict transformation at the School for International Training continued on page 3

News, 2

Arts, 5

Arts, 5

Opinions, 7

’Tis The Season The University’s annual “Brown Gives Green” charity drive kicks off again

OH Baby, Baby Production Workshop has done it again with “The Play About the Baby”

mechanical cirque ‘ B i rd h o u s e Fa c t o r y ’ brings industrial-inspired acrobatics to the PPAC

A Tinted Lens Fatima Aqeel ’12 thinks the media influence how a country is perceived

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

herald@browndailyherald.com

Page 2

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Friday, November 13, 2009

C ampus N EWS

Employee campaign for charity underway

By Leonardo Moauro Contributing Writer

The Brown Gives Green campaign, an annual employee-centered charity drive, has kicked of f a new season of giving after raising nearly $180,000 last year.

At the head of the drive this year are Karen Davis, vice president for human resources, and Professor of Physics Chung-I Tan, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee.

Fundraising began Nov. 1 and officially ends Dec. 31, but the coordinators will “accept your money at the beginning of Januar y, too,” Davis said. Though the fundraising program usually starts in mid-October, the managers elected to begin in November because they “decided it would be more efficient to narrow the time frame,” she said.

All the proceeds of the campaign will be given to two local charity organizations, the Fund for Community Progress and United Way of Rhode Island. Donors can choose which organization and specific program within the charity receives their donation, Davis said.

The fundraising program does not have a specific monetary goal, said Angela Hilliard, manager of employee programs and charity

coordinator. “We are much more concerned about increasing the number of people that donate,” Hilliard said, though they are aiming to improve on last year’s total proceeds. The program registered 345 donors last fall, a 30 percent increase from the year before.

Employees founded the drive about twenty years ago, though the campaign’s name was changed from “Brown Charities Drive” to “Brown Gives Green” for last year’s program, Hilliard and Davis said.

People can donate money by completing charity forms or, starting last year, through an online payroll deduction, an option half of the donors chose. The written forms will be sent out later this week, Davis said.

The drive includes what has been dubbed “Change for Change,” a program to collect small sums of money from many people, which yielded $1,475 in donations last year. The program is organized by site coordinators in most departments that manage the donation boxes (which are used mayonnaise jars).

Site coordinators also organize charity events, such as yard sales and lunches. Last year, Brown Dining Ser vices gave out candy for change on Halloween and the Department of Psychology held a bake sale.

This year, Hilliard said, the Watson Institute for International Studies and the Department of Psychiatr y and Human Behavior are holding five-minute massage sessions for donors in their departments, provided by members

of the Brown University Relaxation Project.

Hilliard said she regularly provides the site coordinators with updates about the drive and comes up with “new strategies to promote the campaign.” Last week, for example, she suggested that all site coordinators incorporate the charities’ logos in their e-mail signatures.

Another Brown Gives Green initiative is the Bookstore Roundup, a program in which Bookstore cashiers ask customers at checkout if they would like to round up their orders to the nearest dollar and donate the difference to charity. Nicholas Lopez, Bookstore staff cashier, said about 60 percent of customers have contributed to the initiative. The proceeds of this strategy amounted to $1,300 last year.

To create excitement around the campaign, this year’s drive places emphasis on prizes to donors, Davis and Hilliard said. The campaign decreased its printing budget in order to create awards — $25 Bookstore gift certificates — for certain first-time donors. At the end of the drive, the coordinators will also give four random donors the “Giving Fever” prize: $100 gift certificates to the Faculty Club. Site coordinators that come up with original fundraising ideas can aspire to win the “Most Creative ‘Fun’-raiser” award.

But coordinators are still tr ying to come up with fresh ideas.

“We need to do more,” Hilliard said. “There are potentially 5,000 people who can give on this campus.”

sudoku

read

share

Daily Herald the Brown

recycle

Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260 Stephen DeLucia, President Michael Bechek, Vice President

Jonathan Spector, Treasurer Alexander Hughes, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each members of the community.

POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com.

World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com.

Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily.

Copyright 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

Frederic Lu / Herald

Administrative Dietician Gina Guiducci balances the dining halls’ menus, but the name “Polynesian Ratatouille” precedes her tenure.

Health and flavor a balancing act for BDS continued from page 1 with plenty of dining options.

“While we do menu French fries, ice cream and soda ever y day, we also menu lean protein like chicken, skim milk, dark leafy greens and brown rice.”

Dining Ser vices plans meals according to a five-week cycle, Guiducci said, which means that meals are planned for each of the five weeks and then repeated. “A five-week cycle allows for a lot of variation in the items that are offered before they reappear in the next cycle,” she said.

Individual items on the Ratty menu with quirky names, such as “Wisconsin Baked Ziti” and “Polynesian Ratatouille,” were named long before Guiducci came to Brown, she said, adding that Dining Ser vices chefs are the “true creative minds behind the recipes

and their names.”

O’Shea said names are often taken from the original recipes in which chefs found their ideas.

Dining Ser vices tries to develop new recipes so that its menu does not stagnate — using winter and summer breaks, for example, to come up with new ideas to add to its recipe file.

Dining Services also arranges a few themed dinner events throughout the year, O’Shea said, such as Thursday night’s Texas BBQ Dinner Special at the Ratty and the V-Dub. Dining Ser vices also plans to coordinate an Earth Day Special in April.

Occasionally, meals from these events become part of the regular menu. For example, Guiducci said, the standard menu item “Pirate Ship Pork Loin” was taken from a pirate-themed dinner a few years ago.

Friday, November 13, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS

Page 3

“Any student has an idealistic view.”

— Keith Dellagrotta ’10, president of the College Republicans

Fifth year in the books, Strait Talk looks to the future

C hocolate R ain

continued from page 1

Kayleigh Butera / Herald

The Special Events Committee held its annual “Candyland” event in Sayles Hall Thursday night.

One year later, Obama still popular continued from page 1 and events and an excitement at “just the fact that he’s in the White House and the fact that he’s pushing this agenda.”

College Republicans President Keith Dellagrotta ’10 said the reason for Obama’s high approval on campus was the liberal leanings of the student body, but he also partly attributed the approval to general student-age attitudes.

“Any student has an idealistic view,” he said, and students hope for “health care for all that doesn’t cost anything or a perfectly energyefficient environment. As you grow older, you sort of learn that a lot of those idealistic views you had weren’t feasible.”

Dellagrotta said student enthusiasm might be down from last fall because many of Obama’s campaign promises, such as new policies in the categories of health care, energy and gay rights, have not been implemented yet.

“I realize it’s still early in his presidency,” Dellagrotta said. “But he had a lot of big promises that he said he was going to get moving quickly.”

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president of the United States?

Strongly disapprove

Don’t know/ No answer

Strongly Approve Somewhat disapprove

Somewhat approve

The results of the Herald poll “bode well for Obama,” wrote Wendy Schiller, associate professor of political science, in an e-mail to The Herald. “But the Brown student

body is not the set of voters that the president is most afraid of losing. It is the independents and moderates in both parties that the president won votes from in 2008.”

Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vt., moderated the mediation sessions, as he has every year since the program began. After seven days of dialogue and negotiation, “the delegates produce a consensus document that represents the agreements that they have come to,” Shepherd said.

“The goal of the consensus document is to show an understanding about the other side.”

For the second year in a row, delegates from Strait Talk have been invited to present their consensus document to the Asia Society as well as the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-profit think tank, both located in New York City.

The public events included a peace project workshop, perspectives on cross-Strait international relations, the final consensus document presentation and discussion panels focused on history, international relations and identity.

Cui said she thinks Strait Talk’s public events add to campus dialogue.

“As of now, not a lot of stuff at Brown is concerned about contemporary Chinese politics or social sciences in general,” she said.

Specific proposals this year included a cultural and arts exchange, in which “cultural heritage items could be shared in a joint exhibition to show commonalities in art,” said Shepherd.

Delegates also proposed a collection of oral histories from people who remembered periods of tumult between China and Taiwan.

This year, the delegates represented a more diverse group than ever before. “Before, it was very Beijing- and Shanghai-dominated,” Shepherd said.

“But this year, the delegates’ regions of origin are more diverse.”

For the future, Strait Talk is working on building a base of alumni and hopes its influence will reverberate for future generations.

“Our goal is to have a generational impact on the way of thinking in the future,” Shepherd said.

The organization has 90 alums around the world. “People who have done our program in the past have gone on to powerful positions in law, diplomacy, intelligence and armed services,” Shepherd added. “We want people who will be in a position of power in the future so they can affect the situation.”

Strait Talk is in the process of creating an organizational infrastructure that can gain an official non-profit 501(c)(3) designation, something they hope it will obtain by the end of this year.

The nonprofit would “help advise chapters of Strait Talk and support alumni,” he said.

Alumni networking is a major priority of the organization, Shepherd said. Recent coordination efforts have included a private online social networking site and an academic newsletter circulated to alums every two weeks.

“We have alumni in New York, mainland China and Taiwan who meet up all the time independently of Strait Talk and take the time to continue talking about these issues,” he said.

Strait Talk also hopes to expand to more campuses in the future, Shepherd said, having held its first symposium at the University of California, Berkeley, earlier this year.

“The potential to reach new communities is really great. We have a huge opportunity to really have an impact on the situation,” Shepherd said.

Page 4

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Friday, November 13, 2009

SportsFriday

In Big Green, a defense ripe for attacking continued from page 1 “I was hoping I’d get (Ivy League) Rookie of the Week,” said Cruz, who was honored as the league’s top defensive rookie for an earlier performance against Cornell. “Every time I’ve looked through, you never have a freshman win the (Ivy League) Defensive or Offensive (Player of the Week), so I was like, ‘Alright my only shot is Rookie.’ ” Apparently not.

Cruz is unlikely to be swatting away too many passes from his fellow freshman award winner this week — Patton is more of a threat on the ground than in the air. In the Big Green’s overtime victory over Cornell last week, Dartmouth ran a two-quarterback system, with Patton as the rushing quarterback and Connor Kempe as the passer.

“We haven’t thrown the ball a whole lot with (Patton),” said Dartmouth Head Coach Buddy Teevens.

“We had two attempts on Saturday, and they weren’t pretty.”

But Cruz is still excited to face the young quarterback.

“It will be exciting to go against him,” Cruz said. “I mean, he hasn’t thrown the ball too much. So if they do, hopefully I could pick him off, make a play.”

Head Coach Phil Estes said Cruz has been making plays for the Bears game after game this season. The freshman cornerback leads the Ivy League in passes defended — with 11 — and is second in the league in interceptions, with three.

Though he is now a league leader, Cruz started the season on the sidelines. He didn’t see any action in Brown’s opener versus Stony Brook. But when Rusty Leedy ’11 got injured against Harvard, Cruz got a chance.

“Whenever you have an opportunity coming in, and you’re not the guy, you always — or at least

I always feel like — you’ve got to prove something,” Cruz said.

Cruz had 2.5 tackles, including one for a loss, against Harvard. He has started every game since.

In the last three weeks, he has had plenty of opportunities, with opposing teams throwing to his side often.

“They look at it and say, ‘Freshman.’ They look at his size, and say, ‘We can beat him,’ ” Estes said after the Yale game. “But A.J. is a hell of a player. He’s one of the best natural corners I have ever seen.”

The 5-foot, 9-inch freshman has had an interception in each of the team’s last three games.

Cruz “has been making big plays in big moments,” said co-captain Jimmy Develin ’10. “It’s incredible for a freshman to be doing that kind of stuff — especially at cornerback.

I mean, that’s one of the riskiest positions to play because, you know, you make a mistake, it’s usually a touchdown.

“He’s really been coming up big for us,” he added.

When asked about teams throwing to his side, Cruz smiled. “They keep trying to pick on me, but I love it,” he said. “That just means I get more action and more opportunity to make big plays.”

Develin said that’s what Cruz does best.

“He’s a playmaker,” Develin said.

“That’s all there is to it.”

The match-up Dartmouth didn’t win a game last season. This year, the Big Green (26, 2-3 Ivy) will travel to Providence coming off of a 20-17 win over Cornell.

Estes said his Bears (5-3, 3-2 Ivy) will face a “much-improved Dartmouth football team.”

Dartmouth has had an up-and-

“A.J. (Cruz ’13) is a hell of a player.”

— Phil Estes, head football coach

Head-to-Head Brown 5-3 (3-2 Ivy)

v.

Records

Dartmouth 2-6 (2-3 Ivy)

26.6 pts/game

Scoring Offense

17.9 pts/game

20.2 pts/game

Scoring Defense

30.6 pts/game

128.9 yds/game

Rushing Offense

123.2 yds/game

281.2 yds/game

Passing Offense

173.2 yds/game

34.6%

3rd-down conversions

37.5%

Versus Common Opponents W, 35-21 L, 14-7 W, 34-14 W, 34-31

Yale Penn Cornell Holy Cross

down season, with only two wins to show for it. Earlier this season, the Big Green put up 24 points against Penn — more than anyone else has scored on the nation’s No. 1 defense.

But the Big Green still ranks secondto-last in scoring offense in the Ivy League.

Only twice a Dartmouth rusher has gone for over 240 yards in a game. Yet the Big Green ranks sixth among the eight Ivies in rushing offense. Dartmouth running back Nick Schwieger, the league’s leading rusher, broke his finger and is out for the season.

Last week against Cornell, Dartmouth’s two-quarterback system provided a replacement running game, with Patton coming out of the wildcat formation.

“It’s amazing to watch Patton just run and make some plays on some quarterback counters and sweeps,” Estes said. “He’s a terrific football player.”

On the other side of the ball, Dartmouth has struggled for most of the season. The team currently ranks last in the league in defense.

“They’re always in zone coverage with very little blitzes,” said wide receiver Bobby Sewall ’10. “They blitz somewhere along the lines of

L, 38-7 L, 30-24 W, 20-17 OT L, 34-14

8 percent of the time.”

The Bears will probably turn to the pass more often, especially if Dartmouth remains in its zone defense.

Brown quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero ’11 leads the Ivy League in completions, attempts, touchdowns, interceptions, yards, total offense and pass efficiency. With two of the league’s top receivers in Sewall and Buddy Farnham ’10, the Bears’ aerial attack should have a big day against Dartmouth.

The Big Green rank last in the league in rushing defense, and, if the Big Green allows them to, the Bears will run, especially if their passing game puts them up early and they want to start grinding time off the clock.

Brown running back Zach Tronti ’11 is out for the season with a torn MCL and ACL, so Spiro Theodhosi ’12 will start in the backfield. Theodhosi had 167 yards and one touchdown on 25 carries against Yale.

But the Bears aren’t taking the Big Green lightly.

“They’re playing every play to the whistle,” Sewall said. “Those are the teams that can really sneak up on you. Those are the teams you have to be aware of.”

Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald

In ‘Birdhouse’ at PPAC, a circus of man and machine

By Brian Mastroianni Senior Staf f Writer

Chris Lashua has always liked wheels.

He was about 13 years old when he started practicing stunts on his bicycle, and eagerly embraced the BMX craze of the 1980s, performing in freestyle biking competitions and state fairs throughout New England. Later on, as a performer with Cirque du Soleil, Lashua mastered and perfected the “German wheel,” a device in which the performer holds onto the inside of a wheel as it rolls across the stage.

Now, as the artistic director of his own circus company, Cirque Mechanics, Lashua has created a new work, “Birdhouse Factory,” inspired by the industrial wheels of the small Massachusetts mill town in which he grew up. “Birdhouse Factory” appears Saturday at Providence Performing Arts Center.

The headliner for the final week of this year’s FirstWorks Festival in Providence, “Birdhouse Factory” is a show based on the “simplicity of how the human body interacts with mechanical devices,” Lashua said.

The production places the genre of circus performance art popularized by Cirque du Soleil within the environment of a factory, circa 1935.

In the show’s narrative, industrial workers unite after a bird is injured when it collides with the factory’s main steam boiler. As the show progresses, the workers construct birdhouses and express their individuality — all through choreographed acrobatics, of course.

Lashua said he feels at home with the industrial wheels and gears of his show’s sets. In addition to drawing inspiration from his hometown, Lashua looked to the artwork of Diego Rivera — who was commissioned by Ford Motor Company to do a series of Detroit murals in the late 1930s — and Charlie Chaplain’s 1936 classic “Modern Times.”

“The show is actually reverseengineered. It began with us identifying what machines worked, and then figuring out how it would look,

and what it would actually be about,” Lashua said.

Lashua founded Cirque Mechanics after completing a six-year tour with Cirque du Soleil’s “Quidam” in Japan.

“I didn’t really know anything about the Cirque du Soleil shows as a teen. I remember watching them on HBO, but that was about it,” Lashua said.

The German wheel became Lashua’s trademark as a performer.

He even improved upon the original design by inventing a trolley on which the wheel rolls.

While Lashua received “great feedback” from his changes to the German wheel, he generated even more praise from his audiences and colleagues with the invention of a “spin cycle device,” which consists of unicyclists underneath a rotating platform. A contortionist would perform what Lashua calls “Matrixstyle” moves on top of the platform as it moves across the stage at varying speeds.

In “Birdhouse Mechanics,” Lashua said, “we drive this through the factory setting, and this way we can show the contortion acts from all angles. People get to see the bicycle element move through space. We want to show how the acts merge acrobatics and technology.”

Now, as a father of three sons and head of Cirque Mechanics, Lashua does not have as much time to perform as he did in the past. But he remains involved in the creative process, currently developing a new show called “Boom Town,” set during the 1850s gold rush.

Lashua also still serves as a creative consultant for Cirque du Soleil.

He said “Boom Town” was “made possible” by Cirque du Soleil’s creation of its genre, but the new show is also distinct in its aesthetic approach.

“We’re trying to be respectful of their combination of acrobatics and choreography, but we do not focus on the fantasy setting,” Lashua said.

“Instead, we focus on a real place and time. Fantastical things might happen, but it is grounded in reality — our look and feel is unique.”

Friday, November 13, 2009 | Page 5

Boy meets Girl meets existential void

By Ben Hyman Arts & Culture Editor

There’s an obvious difference between using a set of directions to get somewhere and using a map.

The former only provides one way of traveling from point A to point B. A map, on the other hand, is the sum of all directions, the totality of all possible routes. Maps open up options, and directions close them.

Yet both maps and directions allow for the possibility of getting lost.

Edward Albee’s “The Play About the Baby” — opening tonight at Production Workshop under the direction of Doug Eacho ’11 — is, yes, about a baby, at least superficially.

But Albee’s language throughout suggests that the play really takes place in the metaphorical terrain of journeys: travel, departure, destinations, getting there, finding the way back, learning the route.

It’s a play that juxtaposes two characters of Edenic innocence against two characters of knowing, Machiavellian experience. On the innocence side, Albee gives us Boy (Paul Cooper ’11) and Girl (Deepali Gupta ’12). At the beginning of the play, they have a baby. Or perhaps they are babies themselves. In classic Albee fashion, they’re both parents and children at once, and their wide-eyed ingenuousness is jarring when set against their frank awareness of their sexuality.

Then there’s Man (Ted Cava ’11) and Woman (Meredith Mosbacher ’11). Dressed in elegantly conservative business clothing, they slowly infiltrate the drama, eventually taking it over. If Boy and Girl were slippery, the identities of Man and Woman are harder still to pin down. This is particularly true of Woman, whose autobiographical monologues sound literary and rehearsed — in other words, totally untrustworthy. It’s not clear who Man and Woman are, where they came from, or what they have to do with Boy and Girl.

“The Play About the Baby” is a slow burn, and it takes a while for the subtle characterizations and submerged conflicts of the first act to come to fruition. But

when everything clicks into place, it’s exhilarating and terrifying: an all-out verbal battle over not just the baby itself, but the baby’s very existence. Is it — was it — a living thing or a linguistic figment?

In the process, Man and Woman take Boy and Girl on a journey through the shadowy corners of what it means to be human in a world of aggression, domination and psychological and sexual manipulation.

Man and Woman suggest that the most difficult and perilous journeys take place in the distances between people and between past and future.

It’s an education, but there’s nothing sentimental about it.

There’s no getting around the fact that there’s a potentially problematic imbalance in Albee’s script.

Man and Woman get much more time to air their positions and develop themselves as characters than Boy and Girl do. Any reader of Milton will find it familiar: The Devil gets all the best lines.

Cava capitalizes on his monologues with impish menace, careening between registers and keeping the audience unsettled, while Mosbacher’s Woman bubbles with charm that deceives and disarms. The two of them refuse to allow the audience to become mere spectators. They weave among the seats and take delight in picking on people, asking

uncomfortable questions.

In some ways, Cooper and Gupta have the harder task here of individuating their characters and making their presence register under this onslaught. As Boy and Girl, they extract enormous pathos from the script and put everything on the line.

The cast as a whole is incredibly impressive.

Eacho’s production — which keeps things moving in a brisk 100 minutes — aims for and achieves immediacy of impact, keeping the set spare and pulling the seats around in the tightest possible half-circle that mimics a thrust stage.

Yet even as he refuses the audience any physical distance from the action, Eacho lays bare the mechanics of the production itself. The lighting board is right there on-stage; pre-act music comes from a visible laptop and a pair of speakers. It is, as the Bostonians say, wicked smart — wicked and smart, in this case, suspending the audience between artifice and sincerity.

PW’s black box space works a kind of magic on productions like this. Self-limitation of resources combines with the weighty emptiness of the theater itself, focusing energy on the central, triangular relationship of actors, audience and text. “The Play About the Baby” is PW doing what PW does best.

Editorial & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 6 | Friday, November 13, 2009

l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r

Honoring the war dead at Brown To the Editor: I was glad to see Alyssa Ratledge’s ’11 recent column (“Do you know what today is?”, Nov. 11), because I too grew up formally recognizing this day. I grew up in the UK during World War II. We lived on a hilltop south of London, on a regular night flight path for German bombers. I witnessed directly the toll of civilian non-combatants, and of air-war combatants. A kindergarten classmate was an early fatality; an uncle was lost in the El Alamein campaign; a cousin of my father, Lilian Rolfe, born in Paris in 1915, came from the safety of South America to become an SOE radio operator helping the Resistance in German-occupied France, but was captured in 1944 and executed in a concentration camp. Faculty members I have known here had their own war stories from around the world. A German academic host in the 1970s had seen his brother die when the family house was bombed in the same conflict. In remembrance of these and many others I hope to

see Veterans’ Day recognized more strongly at Brown in the future, and include not only remembrance of Brown students who served but, as part of our international standing and heritage, also honor persons around the world.

Ratledge speculated why ROTC was removed from the campus (there had been courses for credit taught by ROTC-appointees). I think investigation will show that faculty here decided they did not want courses for credit given by instructors for whom the faculty had no say in selection and where course content could be limited to “official views,” and where dissenting discussion would be strongly discouraged, thereby failing to provide academic freedom for students, and where the military-appointed instructors would fear a record of considering ideas out of line with current policies.

Peter Richardson Professor of Engineering and Physiology Nov. 11

Letters, please! letters@browndailyherald.com t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d Editor-in-Chief Steve DeLucia

Managing Editors Michael Bechek Chaz Firestone

Deputy Managing Editors Nandini Jayakrishna Franklin Kanin Michael Skocpol

editorial Arts & Culture Editor Ben Hyman Features Editor Sophia Li Metro Editor George Miller Metro Editor Joanna Wohlmuth News Editor Seth Motel News Editor Jenna Stark Sports Editor Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Editor Han Cui Asst. Sports Editor Alex Mazerov Asst. Sports Editor Katie Wood Graphics & Photos Chris Jesu Lee Graphics Editor Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Photo Editor Kim Perley Max Monn Asst. Photo Editor Jesse Morgan Sports Photo Editor production Ayelet Brinn Copy Desk Chief Rachel Isaacs Copy Desk Chief Marlee Bruning Design Editor Jessica Calihan Design Editor Asst. Design Editor Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor Julien Ouellet Neal Poole Web Editor Post- magazine Arthur Matuszewski Editor-in-Chief Kelly McKowen Editor-in-Chief

Senior Editors Rachel Arndt Isabel Gottlieb Scott Lowenstein

Business General Managers Office Manager Shawn Reilly Alexander Hughes Jonathan Spector Directors Sales Ellen DaSilva Sales Claire Kiely Finance Katie Koh Asst. Finance Jilyn Chao Alumni Relations Christiana Stephenson Managers Local Sales Kelly Wess National Sales Kathy Bui University Sales Alex Carrere Credit and Collections Matt Burrows Opinions Alyssa Ratledge Sarah Rosenthal

Opinions Editor Opinions Editor

Editorial Page Board James Shapiro Editorial Page Editor Matt Aks Board member Nick Bakshi Board member Zack Beauchamp Board member Debbie Lehmann Board member William Martin Board member

Anna Migliaccio, Nick Sinnott, Katie Wilson-Armstrong, Designers Nicole Boucher, Brendan Burke, Copy Editors Dan Alexander, Nicole Friedman, Hannah Moser, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Dan Alexander, Mitra Anoushiravani, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember, Lauren Fedor, Nicole Friedman, Brigitta Greene, Sarah Husk, Brian Mastroianni, Hannah Moser, Ben Schreckinger, Anne Simons, Anne Speyer, Sara Sunshine, Alex Ulmer, Suzannah Weiss, Kyla Wilkes Staff Writers Shara Azad, Emma Berry, Alicia Chen, Zunaira Choudhary, Alicia Dang, Juliana Friend, Anish Gonchigar, Sarah Julian, Matt Klebanoff, Etienne Ma, Christian Martell, Heeyoung Min, Jyotsna Mullur, Lauren Pischel, Kevin Pratt, Leslie Primack, Luisa Robledo, Dana Teppert, Gaurie Tilak, Caitlin Trujillo, Monique Vernon, Senior Business Associates Max Barrows, Jackie Goldman, Margaret Watson, Ben Xiong Business Associates Stassia Chyzhykova, Marco deLeon, Katherine Galvin, Bonnie Kim, Cathy Li, Allen McGonagill, Liana Nisimova, Thanases Plestis, Corey Schwartz, William Schweitzer, Kenneth So, Evan Sumortin, Haydar Taygun, Webber Xu, Lyndse Yess Design Staff Gili Kliger, Jessica Kirschner, Nicholas Sinnott-Armstrong, Kate Wilson Photo Staff Qidong Chen, Janine Cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic Lu, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Jenny Bloom, Brendan Burke, Sara Chimene-Weiss, Miranda Forman, Sarah Forman, Casey Gaham, Anna Jouravleva, Geoffrey Kyi, Jordan Mainzer, Joe Milner, Claire Peracchio, Lindor Qunaj, Madeleine Rosenberg, William Tomasko

julia streuli

e d i to r i a l

Return of the soldier Last Friday, The Herald published a poll showing a strong plurality of Brown students in support of the return of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which prepares college students to serve in the United States military. With 33.8 percent of respondents uncertain, 41.3 percent said they would approve of ROTC’s reinstatement. These results should be a wake-up call for the faculty, the administration and the Undergraduate Council of Students: After nearly four decades, it is time for Brown to reconstitute this vital connection to America’s proud tradition of military service.

The University’s chapter was disbanded in 1971.

Today, the most salient focal point for hostility toward ROTC is “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a policy that prohibits open homosexuals from serving in the armed forces.

ROTC’s opponents claim that its reinstatement would run afoul of the University’s commitment to non-discrimination. In their view, all we have to do to keep our consciences clean is sit back and wait for DADT to be repealed.

That attitude is unacceptably complacent. The exclusion of homosexuals from the military is insulting and counterproductive — since DADT was established in 1993, more than 13,000 service members have been discharged for their sexual orientation, many of them mission-critical specialists. But despite President Obama’s pledges, the policy is not necessarily nearing its end. In a poll of service members last year by the Military Times, 10 percent of respondents said they would decline to re-enlist if DADT were repealed, and 14 percent said they would consider doing so.

Several factors suggest that these numbers overestimate the threat, but if even a small fraction followed through, the end of DADT would trigger a devastating recruiting crisis even as our military commitment to Afghanistan escalates. Brown alumni with military commissions could play a small but appreciable role

in bolstering tolerance in the ranks and hastening the demise of DADT. The reinstatement of ROTC would be welcome news for Brown students willing to serve their country. Currently, cadets at this campus must travel to Providence College to train and study with the battalion there, and they receive no course credit for the many courses they take in their commendable pursuit of a commission. In the past, a few students have defied these obstacles.

But this year, the severe inconvenience and virtual invisibility of this noble option has left the Providence battalion without a single member from Brown. Cadets benefit not only from practical training, but from the opportunity to earn significant merit-based scholarships. In the same Herald poll that showed student support for ROTC’s return, 38.1 percent of respondents were worried about their ability to finance their education here. They should have the chance to avail themselves of ROTC’s benefits without compromising their education.

ROTC would strongly complement Brown’s tradition of public service. Though its significance is often ignored, Soldiers’ Arch is a powerful daily reminder that many Brown students and graduates have stepped forward across the years to make extraordinary sacrifices to preserve the freedom and prosperity we value so dearly. The return of ROTC would help this campus to engage with the experiences of the tens of millions of Americans who serve or have served, and would foster diversity by attracting students from families with robust military traditions. For our country, for our university, and for ourselves, the students of Brown want ROTC on campus.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

e d i to r ’ s n ot e During the course of its standard copy-editing process, The Herald discovered that portions of an article scheduled for publication on Oct. 29 used language from another source without proper quotation or attribution. The passages in question were corrected, and The Herald reviewed all of the reporter’s past articles for similar problems.

That review turned up a total of eight articles, dating back to Feb. 5, with passages that were identical or nearly identical to language in other sources. Many of the passages included attribution to the original sources but failed to indicate when language was directly copied from those sources. A note has been appended to the online versions of articles that had insufficiently cited quotations. A full list of those articles is included in the editor’s note online.

The Herald continually trains its reporters in proper attribution and journalistic ethics. We are reviewing those training procedures to ensure that The Herald’s standards are clear to all staff members.

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C ommentary P O L I C Y The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, November 13, 2009 | Page 7

The media tool

By Fatima Aqeel Opinions Columnist If you’ve been reading newspapers or watching the news, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about Pakistan.

And probably not many good things.

The thing about the media is that it is an extremely powerful tool. For people who sit sipping coffee in the mornings, reading about parts of the world that they have never been to, newspapers are integral to forming impressions about this other world.

When I, for example, read something about Lebanon or Colombia, this will be the only impression I take with me of these countries for a while, probably until I have a chance to visit these places myself or befriend someone from there. But someone from Lebanon or Colombia would look at this information about their country with very different eyes.

Similarly, when I read or hear news about Pakistan, I think of it very differently than most other people do. Ever y time I read about a car bomb, or listen to Secretar y of State Hillar y Clinton express doubts about Pakistan’s commitment to the war on terror, I know that conditions are bad, and for the past couple of months, they have been getting worse.

But on the other hand, I also know that people still go to work, children go to school and play in parks, there are still fantastic the-

ater performances and art exhibitions, and in science laboratories at hospitals, people are doing research and are trying to come up with solutions to the world’s big health problems. In other words, there are perhaps more problems than there are in the average country, but good things still happen. Good people exist.

It’s like how every time you read about Mexico, you read about murders and drug cartels, so you probably think people don’t even go out on the street. But Mexicans are

ability of death may be the same for different reasons.

My only reason for my knowing what Pakistan is actually like is that I was born and grew up there. And even though there have been political and economic problems, most people have had happy lives.

For many reading the newspaper, however, Pakistan is a country where nothing is going on as it normally should. Or at some level, they may know that things are still carrying on as usual, but they can’t comprehend how.

The content of newspapers can have an impact on the state of affairs in a country, on what foreigners think of a country and on the country’s reputation as a whole.

supposed to be the happiest people (at least according to my Macroeconomics book, “Macroeconomics” by Olivier Blanchard).

So obviously, the Mexicans must have gotten something right.

Similarly, every time I read about Israel, I read about rocket attacks and people dying, but life goes on there as well. And for most people, it is a good life. You still live with the fear of dying, but if you think about it, different people all over the world are exposed to equally real dangers elsewhere. The prob-

All this obviously implies that what is and what is not put out there by the media really matters. When people start thinking of a country as being more “messed up” than it actually is, the country is likely to go on a downward spiral, where conditions worsen and the country suffers more than it otherwise would. Politically, the country becomes toxic, and nobody believes there is hope for it. Economically, fewer and fewer foreigners want to travel to it, invest in it or help it.

In other words, the content of newspapers

can have an impact on the state of affairs in a country, on what foreigners think of a country and on the country’s reputation as a whole.

This column is in no way pointing toward censorship. Solutions to problems can never be found by hiding what is going on, and moreover, people deserve to know the truth. But on the other hand, for a country that has so many bad things said about it, it is also important to present the other side of the coin.

As a Pakistani citizen, I don’t see the army as terrorist sympathizers. I see the army, the government and the Pakistani people making extraordinary efforts in the American-started war on terror.

The army is clamping down on its own people. Pakistanis are fighting other Pakistanis. If you think something seems wrong with this situation, well, so do some Pakistanis.

Others wholeheartedly support the war on terror, including the ordinary citizens who endure frequent suicide bombings. But they get discouraged when their country is given no credit for its efforts.

Those citizens deserve some recognition from the international media. While I’m not suggesting that the media totally flip their narrative about Pakistan so that it is only portrayed in a positive light, maybe once in a while they could see things from our point of view.

Fatima Aqeel ’12 is an economics concentrator from Karachi, Pakistan.

She can be reached at Fatima_Aqeel@brown.edu.

The importance of mentoring

by Mary Bates Opinions Columnist Success in graduate school cannot be accomplished alone. One of the most important relationships you will develop in grad school will be with your mentor, a person whose role goes beyond merely advising to include support, encouragement and guidance.

What is the difference between advising and mentoring? An adviser counsels students to help them reach their academic and professional goals, advises on coursework and training programs and offers feedback on the student’s work and progress. While mentors can also perform these duties, their role includes fostering a relationship with the student to help him or her develop professionally and personally throughout the time spent in grad school.

The myriad roles of a mentor include an adviser, who guides the student in his or her academic progress; a supporter, who provides emotional encouragement during difficult times; a sponsor, who helps the student find information on grants, internships and other opportunities; a tutor, who evaluates the student’s performance; and a model of integrity and good professional practices.

Choosing an academic adviser is often the first step. Although older students, post-docs and other faculty members can also serve as mentors, it can be advantageous when your primary faculty adviser considers his or her role to include mentoring, as well. Before ac-

cepting an offer to study together, find out if the adviser is committed to working closely with students or if he or she prefers a more hands-off approach, encouraging students to work independently.

Good communication is essential for a satisfying mentoring relationship. Both the student and the mentor should be aware of the other’s expectations and perceptions of effective mentoring. The result should be a graduate who is prepared to enter his or her profession with not only the knowledge

est and constructive evaluations; and helping both students and mentors be aware of their expectations and progress.

The graduate school has adapted two specific tools (which can be found on the Advising and Mentoring page of the Brown Graduate School Web site) to serve these purposes.

These are meant to serve as guidelines for thinking about the shared goals of the student and mentor, and can be modified to meet the needs of different programs.

The first of these is a self-assessment work-

One of the most important relationships you will develop in grad school will be with your mentor.

and skills necessary for success, but also the confidence to execute his or her plans.

Unfortunately, mentoring is practiced unevenly in doctoral programs, and the influence of effective mentoring can be difficult to quantify. As part of Brown University’s participation in the national Ph.D. Completion Project, the graduate school has been working to strengthen the mentoring of its students. Some of the areas of focus include encouraging more shared responsibility for the timely progress and success of students within a program; calling for regular meetings between students and mentors, including hon-

sheet for grad students called an Individual Development Plan, or IDP. It is designed to help organize and plan the progress, needs and objectives of the graduate student and serve as a method of communicating these to the faculty mentor.

The IDP consists of three main parts. In Part I, the student provides a brief review of the progress he or she has made in the last year in terms of research, publications, conferences attended, teaching experience and other professionally relevant activities. In Part II, the student lays out his or her research and training plans for the next year. Part III gives

the student the opportunity to analyze his or her short and long-term goals and to identify steps that can be taken to reach them.

The second tool available to students and advisers from the graduate school is an Advising Agreement between graduate students and faculty. This is a template that contains lists of responsibilities for both the student and the adviser. For example, the graduate student pledges to meet with the adviser to plan a timeline for his or her dissertation and to demonstrate his or her commitment to a graduate education by performing well in classroom and research settings.

At the same time, the adviser promises to meet with the student and provide resources to him or her for research, guide the student through the departmental milestones of the program and help the student to attend and seek out funding for appropriate professional meetings.

Both of these documents could be put to good use by faculty and students. Because it can be hard to implement improved mentoring practices at a University-wide level, it is up to individual students to seek out the support they need from advisers or other mentors.

Clear expectations, shared responsibility for progress and good communication between the student and mentor are essential for a successful graduate career. Behind every successful graduate student, there is at least one proud mentor.

Mary Bates GS is a Ph.D candidate in the psychology department. She can be reached at mary_bates@brown.edu.

Today The Brown Daily Herald

s t r a i t to t h e p o i n t

4

Big game against the Big Green

5

to day

to m o r r o w

52 / 46

51 / 47

Boy meets Girl meets existential void

Friday, November 13, 2009

Page 8

d i a m o n d s a n d c oa l Coal to UCS, which spent its Wednesday meeting proposing a resolution to make it easier for UCS to pass resolutions. If the meta-resolution passes, all you’ll need for a successful vote is a simple majority — just about the same percentage of Brown students who don’t know what you do (according to a recent Herald poll).

A diamond to the clever math nerds who, The Herald reported this week, call their intramural hockey team “the Eulers,” after the famous mathematical thinker and the NHLers from Edmonton. Nice pun!

We Thoreau-ly enjoyed it, Kant think of a better one and were on the Virgil of tears when we heard it.

We Gauss what we’re trying to say is: We thought it was pretty Nietzsche.

1

Coal to the ingenious Machado resident who hid two $20 bills in her laptop, where no burglars would ever think to look for something valuable. But a lucky diamond to the cash-hungry Machado thief who spied the bills and ended up with a computer, too.

c a l e n da r Today, November 13

tomorrow, November 14

7 Pm — Men’s Hockey vs. Colgate, Meehan Auditorium

10 am — Honoring the Harvest, Haffenreffer Museum, Bristol

8 pm — Brownbrokers Presents: Leavittsburg, Ohio, Stuart Theatre

12:30 PM — Football vs. Dartmouth, Brown Stadium

menu Sharpe Refectory Lunch — Hot Turkey Sandwich With Gravy, Broccoli Au Gratin, Frosted Brownies Dinner — Saturday Night Jambalaya, Red Potato Frittata, Grilled Bacon

A cubic zirconium to Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65, who gave his veto pen a workout this week, nixing bills that would let Rhode Islanders claim the remains of a deceased domestic partner, head to a “compassion center” when they need medical marijuana or vote in a special election to fill a vacant Senate seat. We know you’re just exercising your constitutional authority, but come on — you just ruined the week of every elderly, gay, aspiring congressman with glaucoma in the state.

Coal to the Institutional Review Board, which is trying to make it easier for undergrads to get approval for research projects involving “experiments” on “human subjects.” It’s already hard enough to tell the difference between legitimate scientific inquiry and bad pickup lines — do we really want more math geeks studying how to lie tangent to your curves?

A diamond to Professor of Africana Studies and world-renowned writer Chinua Achebe, who was welcomed to campus Tuesday with a conversation about his work in Salomon 101. Don’t worry, Professor Achebe, they made all of us sit through a book discussion when we first got here, too.

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies Dinner — Pasta and Seafood Medley, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Rhode Island Quahog Chowder

Coal to the fact that the field hockey team didn’t manage a win in the Ivy League this season. It’s a confusing result, given how much more time than many of our Ivy counterparts the typical Brown student spends on grass.

And a cubic zirconium to the students who took mallets to a replica of the Berlin Wall this week on the Main Green. We appreciate the sentiment, but did the rift between Quiet Green snugglers and Lincoln Field Frisbee-throwers really need breaching? Next anniversary, please, spare Brown this wall.

crossword comics Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez